Altruism – selfless acts of kindness – is highest in American states with high well-being.
Psychological scientists Abigail Marsh and Kristin
Brethel-Haurwitz of Georgetown University conducted a study on altruism in 2016.
The findings are published in Psychological
Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
Researchers Marsh and Brethel-Haurwitz wanted
to test their hypothesis that altruism might have something to do with
subjective well-being, given that well-being is associated with other pro-social
behaviours, including volunteering and charitable giving.
To explore a possible link, the researchers
used kidney donation data from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation
Network and nationally representative well-being data from the
Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.
They used information on kidney donation
because 11% to 54% of adults say that they’d be willing to consider altruistic
kidney donation, but only a tiny fraction of them actually become donors, said
the researchers. “Our work suggests that subjective well-being may be a factor
that ‘nudges’ some adults into actually donating.”
Non-directed kidney donation is unique,
says Marsh, because it meets the most stringent criteria for altruism. People
willingly choose to donate their kidney to someone they aren’t related to,
someone they don’t even know — and the process of donating requires
considerable time, and the risk of experiencing serious discomfort and pain.
Just as they predicted, the data revealed a
positive relationship between altruistic kidney donation and well-being. The states
in America with higher per capita donation rates tended to have higher levels
of well-being. The positive link was also evident when the researchers combined
states into nine broader geographic regions, and also when they examined the
data for a single year (2010).
Together, these findings suggest that
well-being is not just linked to pro-social behaviours, like charitable giving,
but may also promote genuine altruism.
Importantly, the link remained even after
regional variation in several other factors – such as household income, age,
education, and mental and physical health – were accounted for. And the link
wasn’t explained by specific cultural factors either, including regional levels
of religiosity or collectivist attitudes.
The findings have clear implications for
public health. “Kidney disease is now the 8th leading cause of death in the US,
and living kidney donations are the best hope for restoring people to health
who have kidney disease,” says Marsh. “Understanding the dynamics that
lead to this kind of donation might help increase the numbers of donations,
which currently are in decline.”
The link between well-being and altruism
may be particularly important in light of increased focus on policies that
focus on societal level well-being, above and beyond economic well-being. “Given
that altruism itself promotes well-being, policies that promote well-being may
help to generate a virtuous circle whereby increases in well-being promote
altruism that, in turn, increases well-being,” Brethel-Haurwitz and Marsh
conclude.
Hence if the cycle of altruism and
well-being are linked, then states and countries with high well-being are
likely to be volunteer and donate more time and money, thus leading to the
well-being of others – and so the cycle goes on.
MARTINA
NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and
the author of:- The Shortness of
Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet
(2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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